Survey Vaults Milan Over New York As Fashion Capital

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We must be slipping; Milan, home of overly tan Armani and overly tan Donatella, and ?yes?overly tan Dolce & Gabbana, has beat us out for the title of "Most Fashionable City." This is the result of a survey conducted by the trend-tracking group Global Language Monitor, which measured cities "partly based on how fashion terms like 'haute couture' and 'mode' are used to describe them in the media, on the Internet and in the blogosphere."

If that's the case, then how come Paris didn't win out considering that those are both French words? And obviously they haven't been tuning in to blogs such as The Sartorialist, who claims New York as his base, or Susie Bubble, whose London frolicks should have swung more favor away from a Milan, generally known as the old guard of fashion.

Granted, the recession has affected the usually indulgent presentations over the last two Fashion Weeks, a fact which really delivered the coup de grace to New York's status, but you simply can't do what the NY Daily News did and compare photographs of looks from Michael Kors and Dolce & Gabbana.

What really kills the credibility of this survey for us however, is their ranking of other US cities: "Los Angeles made the top 10, finishing at No. 6 in front of Hong Kong. The only other U.S. city to make the top 10 was Las Vegas." We think maybe that the fact LA managed to stage their Fashion Week after all improbably rocketed them above Hong Kong, but really? And what do we say about Las Vegas? Maybe that it's made of plaster casts of luxury retail in New York and therefore shouldn't be anywhere near the Top 10?

Perhaps we're just bitter that New York looses out to a city that enjoys Lindsay Lohan on a tram. Have they forgotten where Project Runway began? Ok, we're kidding about making that a style barometer, but really ... what say you?
· Milan sashays past New York to top list of world's most fashionable cities [NYDN]